Sunday, March 8, 2009

Tony Bevan on sax, Chris Corsano on drums, Dominic Lash on bass. The first track is a 2-minute warm-up, to get the muscles working, do some stretching. The second, title track, is a monster truck getting up to speed, slowly at first, but once it has reached its peak of intensity, it keeps it going, full blast, relentlessly, for some eight minutes, after which the whole thing relaxes again. But all that was just setting the scene for what is coming next, a 31-minute track, called "This Is Murder", and it is, in a way. It is absolutely agonising in its physical power, in its emotional power, in its musical power, in its lyrical power, and fabulous in the tension it creates, brilliant in the stark contrast between the violent and the tender moments. Magnificent. The last piece starts slowly, but becomes fierce near the end, and is by itself still fine, but kind of an anti-climax after its ferocious predecessor. Can you create worlds of sounds with just three acoustic instruments? Yes, you can. Does one track justify buying the album? It does!